So three years ago in an Accomack County jail cell, Jenkins bit the plastic casing off a shaving razor, tied off his scrotum with shoelaces, bit into an apple to stifle his screams and went from rooster to hen faster than you can sing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me."

"I was convinced that was the only salvation for me," Jenkins is quoted as saying in Sunday's Daily Press. "I had to think about my testicles versus life in prison."

Frankly, I would have mustered more sympathy for the guy if his concerns had tended more toward his young victims, past and future, and less toward his own body parts and where they might be spending the next 30 years.

Virginia lawmakers had the chance this year to allow high-risk sex offenders like Jenkins to volunteer for surgical castration at the hands of professionals, but they passed on the idea.

Instead, taxpayers are building a $62 million facility to warehouse, we hope, the worst of the worst in civil confinement once their criminal sentences are up.

At least it's a plan.

We can debate ad nauseum the merits of castration versus confinement, chemicals versus scalpels, whether rape is a crime of lust or a crime of power and domination, whether castration is a civilized option or even an effective one, and the many ways in which a castrated male can still sexually violate a victim.

What I'd rather discuss is how to take the castration idea and really run with it.

Why stop with males who sexually violate children? Why not include males who murder children?

And, for that matter, why not include females who maim or murder children?

I bet we can all name miscreants of both genders who should never, ever be allowed in the proximity of minors: homicidal parents, abusive live-ins, psychotic babysitters.

Think of the lives and futures we could save with human spay-and-neuter clinics and the right client list.

Mothers like Tammy Skinner of Suffolk, who admitted shooting her own baby out of her belly. Live-ins like Misty Fuller of Isle of Wight, charged with bashing in the head of her boyfriend's toddler.

Daddies like Elijah Tyrone Mitchell of Hampton, convicted last month in the beating death of his 8-week-old baby daughter. Babysitters like Shane Joseph Cartwright of Williamsburg, charged in June with abuse and neglect after the 1-year-old boy in his charge had his skull fractured.

Crimes like this don't generally call for natural life in prison. Crimes like this, you do your time and you're out again.

And all bets are off.

Sure, the notion of human spay-and-neuter clinics will never merit serious consideration in the mainstream. At least, not as a punishment or deterrent for violent criminal behavior against women and children.

We're not that kind of people.

Instead, we're the kind of people who spend millions in taxpayer dollars to confine and try to "reform" people like Jenkins, who tell us point blank that we're deluding ourselves. Jenkins supports the castration bill.

We're the kind of people that dump too many sexually violent predators back into the community after they've paid their dues, manhood intact.

We're the kind of people who are unmoved by European studies showing a recidivism rate of only 3 percent to 7 percent among sex offenders who underwent chemical or surgical castration. Studies showing that, of those not castrated, 39 percent to 52 percent reoffended.

Next year, Virginia lawmakers will have a chance to consider the castration bill again.

Next year, let's see if they finally have the apples for it.

Tamara Dietrich can be reached at tdietrich@dailypress.com or at 247-7892. *